Ithaca’s three Starbucks stores recently made national news by becoming the first city where all Starbucks outlets voted to unionize. With stores closing by the end of the month, the union has turned its focus upon Cornell, resulting in a two-day long building occupation and protests. The result has been a further loss of face for both the paid union organizers and senior Cornell leaders.
Starbucks Union Organizing Campaign
Unlike historic union drives targeting industrial companies, the Starbucks unionization drive reflects organized labor’s broader shift towards the service-sector. Starbucks has over 14,000 locations and sells products whose value stems from its premium brand reputation. Baristas sell highly marked up products that, in turn, may generate higher tips than would be possible at other coffee-selling chain stores such as McDonalds.
In January 2007, Starbucks opened a store in Collegetown. After 15 years without incident, the grease trap in the Collegetown store required maintenance, prompting its workers to go on strike, so Starbucks closed that location in June 2022. Earlier last year, on April 8, 2022, all three Ithaca Starbucks locations voted to unionize.
On May 5, 2023, Starbucks told all of its Ithaca workers that the remaining two locations would close by May 26. Starbucks Workers United (SWU), the union representing the baristas, filed unfair labor practice charges against Starbucks over the closings, although Starbucks denied the decision was based on the union organizing.
With the closing of all Ithaca Starbucks locations, the only remaining sources of the coffee brand in Tompkins County were the Barnes & Noble bookstore, Target and certain Cornell-based cafes. SWU thus turned its attention to Cornell, seeking to end sales of Starbucks coffee on campus.
Day Hall Takeover
Students and Starbucks employees occupied the lobby area of Day Hall on May 11 and 12, 2023. The stated objective of the protest was a campus-wide switch to an “ethical” brand to be approved by the student activists occupying Day Hall and Starbucks Workers United. The protestors demanded a new coffee brand before the beginning of the fall semester. The crowd remained less than two dozen people, and it is unclear how many were Cornell students, Cornell students who actually worked at Starbucks, or non-student Starbucks employees.
The organizers set up a webpage which helped generate over 900 emails to Cornell asking it to stop selling Starbucks coffee. When confronted with this figure, Vice President for Student and Campus Life, Ryan Lombardi, at first denied receiving 900 emails, then called into question the veracity of some of the emails, saying they were generic and did not appear to come from Cornellians.
On May 11, protesters set up a table outside Olin Library to distribute coffee as an alternative to the Starbucks Coffee being sold in the Amit Bhatia Libe Café. The protesters were told that tabling and food sales outside the library were not allowed. The Cornell University Police Department (CUPD) told the protesters to leave, so they moved their protest to the lobby of Day Hall. They then demanded to speak with President Pollack.
At about 4:55 p.m., Ryan Lombardi (who is in charge of Cornell Dining) and Marla Love, Dean of Students (who reports to Lombardi and in turn supervises the Office of Student Conduct and Community Standards) came to the lobby of Day Hall to meet the protestors. At that meeting, Love told the protesters that they must leave the building when it closed– at 6 p.m.
Meanwhile, the Student Assembly met on the same day, Thursday the 11th, primarily to resolve a standoff over who should be President of that group. However, both potential candidates agreed to co-sponsor two resolutions dealing with Starbucks. These resolutions backed the protestors’ demands and were adopted with President Pollack being left to accept or veto them.
It turns out that President Pollack was in Qatar attending the Cornell Medical School’s May 9 graduation ceremony, but Lombardi and Love contacted her to set up a Zoom meeting for May 12.
The protestors refused to leave at 6 p.m., which was a clear violation of the Student Code of Conduct. By 7:15 p.m. a group of CUPD officers had entered Day Hall. At 8:45 p.m., the CUPD officers re-entered the lobby. Citing trespassing as a violation of the Student Code of Conduct, officer Eric Steickel issued an ultimatum: leave by 9 p.m. or face referral to the OSCCS.
However, this undercut Dean Love who had correctly stated that remaining in Day Hall after 6 p.m. was the cutoff point for a judicial referral on the charge of “unauthorized entry upon or use of a University property or facility or by unlawfully remaining in or on the same.” While Steickel’s approach succeeded in getting the protestors to leave Day Hall just before 9 p.m. without violence, the fact is that any member of the Cornell community can file a complaint with OSCCS for the failure to leave by the 6 p.m. closing time.
Instead, the protestors had set up tents just outside Uris Hall, and twelve camped out there overnight, again in violation of the Student Code, which prohibits, “[b]uilding a structure on the campus without a permit or in violation of the conditions of a permit.”
The next day, the protestors re-entered the Day Hall lobby when it reopened at 8 a.m. At 10:15 a.m., Lombardi and Love met again with the protestors and offered the opportunity for four of them to participate in a Zoom session with President Pollack.
Essentially, the Administration agreed to disclose the non-confidential terms of the Cornell-Starbucks contract and to set a date by May 15 to hold another meeting before May 31. Reportedly, the current Starbucks contract runs through July 2025. Cornell agreed to a second meeting between the protestors, “Procurement, Legal, Cornell Dining and Student and Campus Life.” The university did not publicly mention that any opponents of the boycott would attend the meeting.
By 2 p.m. on May 12, the protestors voted to end the Day Hall “occupation.”
Consequences
Remarkably, the Sun reported, “Lombardi and Love promised the demonstrators that there would be no immediate consequence if the protesters decide to reoccupy the building after the meeting if they did not comply with their terms.”
Neither Lombardi nor Love have the power to promise that. Unlike the old Campus Code where a Judicial Administrator had the discretion to bring charges, the Student Code allows any member of the Cornell community to file a complaint that triggers charges. So, if the protestors reoccupy the building in reliance on Lombardi and Love’s promise, they can still be brought up in an OSCCS proceeding.
Avery Bower ‘23 said, “These protestors are out-of-touch and anti-work. This all originated with a student who objected to working a normal 8-hour shift that a majority of Americans do every day. Their requests of the Cornell administration are far from the mainstream.”
Although the demands are not clear, it appears that the SWU is trying to organize a secondary boycott. Depending upon the SWU’s exact demands, this boycott could be a violation of Section 8(b)(4) of the National Labor Relations Act, as SWU’s demands may be seeking an improper early termination of the Starbucks – Cornell contract.
Although it is difficult for any issue to capture the attention of the campus during finals week, the Starbucks labor dispute has not gained widespread campus support as it has been simmering over the past 18 months. Unfortunately, the publicity stunt of an occupation of Day Hall and an illegal campground in front of Uris Hall has managed to distract top administrators from their other duties. “Two dozen people, some of whom may not be Cornell students, should not be allowed to hijack Cornell’s policymaking,” Bower added.
Although some protestors stated that unnamed administrators expressed disapproval of resorting to a building takeover rather than “official channels” to make their complaint, the protestors felt vindicated because their tactic worked. Danielle Donovan ‘25 tweeted “VP Lombardi said we only got the meeting bc we occupied Day — @Cornell should bargain in good faith or expect further action.”
“Once again, the administration appears to be rewarding people who openly violate the Student Code rather than making a good faith effort to enforce those rules without bias. Cornell’s regulation of speech (including protests) must be content neutral,” Bower said.
The protestors’ demands are also self contradictory. One of their documents says that Cornell “has an additional responsibility not to take sides in an ongoing labor dispute such as this one.” Yet, it appears that the protest tactics are geared toward a secondary boycott of Starbucks to put pressure to change its position on its labor dispute.
The protests also complicates Cornell’s relationship with the City of Ithaca who will renegotiate Cornell’s payment in lieu of property taxes next year, as at least one Common Council member has backed the protests. Fourth Ward Common Council member Jorge DeFendini congratulated the SWU in a tweet saying, “Solidarity and praise to the courageous students who stood up to their administration in solidarity with their SB Union neighbors in the greater Ithaca Community. You just demonstrated what coming together as students and locals should look like.” DeFendini photographed himself participating in the May 11 demonstration on Ho Plaza.
If the SWU believes there is widespread support for its views, why not conduct a campus-wide referendum in the fall? Advocates should be prepared to convince Cornellians of the merits of their demands, rather than trying to blackmail Day Hall into making a decision that could be contrary to the wishes of a majority of the campus.
